Hardware Platform And Implementation Of A Real-Time Multi-User Mimo-Ofdm Testbed

This paper describes a modular hardware platform of a multi-user (MU) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) testbed. The hardware platform is based on multiple field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), provides four integrated radio-frequency (RF) chains, and has capabilities for extension boards. The performance and modularity of the testbed enables real-time MU-MIMO-OFDM experiments as well as offline processing experiments. To this end, the MIMO physical (PHY) layer of Haene et al., IEEE J-SAC, 2008, has been adapted to the new hardware platform and extended with bi-directional communication facilities and a basic media access control (MAC) layer equipped with Ethernet connectivity.